Collaborative design and construction of reconfigurable wood structures in a Mixed Reality environment

Mixed Reality tools offer new possibilities for cyber-physical design and construction and promote novel collaboration protocols. This work tackles a multi-user open-end design and construction of reconfigurable timber structures in Mixed Reality by introducing a computational workflow, physical setup and custom-designed interface. The developed procedures are demonstrated in the design and making of a real-scale architectural mock-up based on a discrete construction kit that allows for numerous assembly combinations. The results show that such a construction system that is characterized by rich design and assembly data is processed faster and with fewer mistakes by the builders using Mixed Reality. This opens the possibility to execute, change and update the construction directly in the physical environment in real-time. Moreover, the projected holographic analytics and construction data allowed for more structured decision-making and understanding of the impacts that each building action had.